FORESTRY COMMISSION. 83 



fxglit the forest policy of all the Central European states. Especially 

 through Adam Smith and the French Eevolution the unlimited right of 

 the individual in its property gjiined many champions. France, especial- 

 ly, lost a large part of its valuable forest holdings, so that for the last 

 fifty j-ears she has found it necessary to spend many millions of dollars 

 to correct the bad results of denudation in her hill, mountain and sand 

 dune district. Xor is this all. She paid a heavy fine every year in form 

 of a large sum spent in the import of lumber and timber which she might 

 have raised at home. 



But in spite of all sophistry the lesson of 1,000 years is thoroughly 

 learned in nearly all states of Eurojie, and effort is being made every- 

 where to overcome the great difficulties and restore the jjoor lands and 

 v.-aste lands to forestry as the only form of agriculture which can use 

 these lands, permanently preserve them and actually improve them. 



In this connection, the experience of Great Britain is of interest. 

 Less than 30% of its area is real plow land, another 30%, is permanent 

 pastures, while the rest, or about 40%, is not used for agviculture, the 

 bulk of this being waste lands, worthless heath lands, where once a good 

 growth of forest existed and where now the only income from the lands 

 consists in a few tons of wool and mutton or a rent shilling paid by 

 sportsmen for the privilege of shooting a few birds. Land monopoly, 

 together with an utter disregard of forestry, the only good form of 

 agriculture for these lands, has deprived England of millions of dollars 

 of income which she might have had from these lands, to say nothing of 

 the indirect benefits in woodworking industries which might have thrived, 

 nor of the benefit to climate and the flow of her streams. And yet 

 I^ngland pays over |100,000,000 a year to supply herself with timber, and 

 this import has increased with every year for over half a century. 



In our own country there was ample and timely warning when the 

 jdifferent colonies were first settled and the Old A^'orld experience was 

 still fresh in the minds of men. As early as 1640 the people of Exeter, N. 

 H., adopted a regulation concerning the cutting of oak timber ; in 1701 the 

 Governor of New A'ork advocated that saw mill men should replace young 

 growth on lands Avhere they cut and did not clear. By the year 1800 

 numerous public efforts had been made to stay the destruction of the 

 forest and to restore it on the non-agricultural lands. But all this was 

 in vain, a spirit of recklessness was abroad, the people were waging a 

 war on the wilderness and had no desire to practice forestry. Later on 

 came the railway and steamboat, the phenomenal growth of our cities, 

 of our industries, the settlement of the prairie, and with these an 

 enormous market for lumber- and forest products generally. In spite of 

 the good advice and warnings of the old pioneers, in spite of occasional 

 warning of contemporary writers, the forest was not merely cleared for 

 plow land, it Avas not only the slow fight of the settler for a home, but 

 the forest was invaded for timber only, and the destruction of the forest 

 far outran settlement. What wonder then that Dr. J. T. Rothrock, the 

 pioneer forester of Pennsylvania, as much as twenty years ago had to 

 report to the people and the legislature that millions of acres had been 

 denuded in their state without any intention and without any hope of 

 making the lands useful for agriculture. The old argument which met 

 former protests and presentations, namely, "Our lands are practically all 

 agricultural lands," was disproved. Miles and miles of blackened hill- 



